“We are in the middle of an exciting phase of mission preparation,” said Judy Dawson, Roman systems engineer at NASA Goddard. “All the components are now here at Goddard, and they are coming together one by one. We expect to have the telescope and instruments integrated with the spacecraft before the end of the year.
First Engineers Coordinated the coronagraph instrument.A technology demonstration designed for Photo exoplanets — worlds beyond our solar system — by using a complex suite of masks and active mirrors to obscure the glare of the planets’ host stars.
The team then merged. Optical telescope assemblyIt consists of a 7.9-foot (2.4 m) primary mirror, nine additional mirrors, and their supporting structures and electronics. The telescope will focus cosmic light and send it to the Roman instrument, revealing billions of objects spread across space and time. Roman will be the most stable large telescope ever built, at least 10 times more powerful than NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and 100 times more powerful than the agency’s Hubble Space Telescope. This will allow scientists to measure at a level of precision that can answer important questions. Dark energy, Dark matterand Worlds outside our solar system..
With these components, the team then added Roman’s core device. called to Wide field devicethis 300 megapixel infrared camera would give Roman a deep, panoramic view of the universe. by a wide-field instrument Surveyscientists will be able to explore the distant exoplanetsstars, galaxies, black holes, Dark energy, Dark matterand more. Thanks to this instrument and the observatory’s performance, ROMAN will be able to image large areas of the sky 1,000 times faster than Hubble with the same sharp, sensitive image quality.
“It would be too early to list astronomy topics that Roman will not be able to address,” said Julie McEnery, senior project scientist for Roman at NASA Goddard. “We’ve never had an instrument like this before. Roman will revolutionize the way we do astronomy.
The telescope and instruments were mounted in a Roman instrument and precisely aligned in Goddard’s largest clean room, where the observatory is being assembled. Now, the entire assembly is being attached to Roman spaceshipwhich will deliver the observatory to its orbit and enable it to operate once there.
At the same time, of the mission Deployable aperture cover – A visor that will protect the telescope from unwanted light – is being added. Outer barrel assemblywhich acts as the telescope’s exoskeleton.
“We’ve had an incredible year, and we’re looking forward to another year!” said Bear Witherspoon, a Roman systems engineer at NASA Goddard. “While the payload and spacecraft are undergoing testing together, the team will work to integrate the solar panels into the outer barrel assembly.”
That puts the observatory on track for completion by fall 2026 and launch no later than May 2027.
To see an interactive version of the telescope in action, visit:
https://roman.gsfc.nasa.gov/interactive
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is managed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and Space Telescope Science at Caltech/IPAC, Baltimore. Institute, and a science team consisting of various scientists is involved. The research institute’s primary industrial partner is BAE Systems Inc. in Boulder, Colorado. L3Harris Technologies in Rochester, New York; and Teledyne Scientific and Imaging in Thousand Oaks, California.
By Ashley Balzer
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight CenterGreenbelt, Md.
Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
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